Hiking in Acadia National Park and a little shopping

Hiking in Acadia National Park and a little shopping 

Saturday August 26, 2023

Today we got up and out the door before 9:30 a.m. we went back to Acadia National Park. Parked the truck and went and talked to a couple Rangers. He was telling us great stories of working in Alaska, but too rough to stay there.

 He said he never seen any place where people would point a gun at officers and get away with it. She was sharing stories of places to Work Camp in Yellowstone, I believe. I told her how I wanted to be a ranger on horseback in my younger days. Still would love that now, maybe not so much the ranger part just the horseback.

 Figured out some details and made a plan. To my surprise Jim was willing to go for a hike. We changed into our hiking shoes and went down a path that was about a mile long, one way.

 Had some great views, refilled the water bottle and headed back to the truck. After talking with another Ranger again. We decided to drive up the road as we were trying to make the path around scootdic peninsula. 

We drove there a few miles away had our lunch with a fabulous View. 

Then we packed up and hiked all around the rocks.

The tide was coming in and there was a lot of waves crashing the shore. 

There was a lady that was painting there since early in the morning she said.. 

This was a great hike we both loved it.

Then we got back in the truck by now it was about 4:00 in the afternoon.

Great views on the way out of the park.

Middle picture was lighthouse on Mark's Island.

 Couple stores I wanted to stop at on the way home. 

We drove past the mini lighthouse, cool.

We were recommended to go into Reny's. They had great prices and I would compare it to Lebanon County residents, would remember the department store Hill's.

 Then we went across the street to LL Bean outlet. Told Jim the only thing I really wanted to get was him a pair of hiking socks. We found the same pair for him that Drew bought for me in Pennsylvania. Drew paid 25 to $30 for one pair I think. Not the outlet,  Jim paid under $16.39.

 Then we headed home we did pass another store I wanted to go into but he was done, was a kitchen store. The store for cook's. Found out later they're closed Sunday and Monday,. 

Return to the campground, we drove up to where the food truck was for today we shared a chicken patty and curly fries.

 Then we watched as they were setting up for music tonight. We sat at a picnic table with our neighbors right in front of us. They're full-time for 5 years and they haul one motorcycle with them.

 Talked about Switch It Up and Brazen Brits. Gave them the switch it up card. 

Then we went back to the RV, we had some soup to finish off our dinner. We both took showers crashed for the night. 

Could hear the music from here, so we never left. Ended up watching a few  old episode of Naked and Afraid. Stayed up too late, 11 and we crashed. But it was alot of fun.. Rock climbing is exhausting. 

Sunday August 27, 2023

Sunday we didn't go anywhere. It was a beautiful day we both spend time outside. 

Jim did some grilling. We did the little minis zucchini pies. 

Grilled zucchini and yellow squash and some onions and peppers. A ranger came by and said are you guys going to go somewhere or just hang around. Was kind of funny. Jim ended up talking with him for quite a while. He wanted to know what smelled so good we were cooking. Jim told him and I gave him one mini zucchini pie. He asked him about helping tomorrow get out of here. Since there's huge decorative rocks everywhere.

Later Jim grilled chicken patties for dinner and 2 tomorrow night.

We were planning on going somewhere but it was great just hanging out at the campsite for the day.

We tried to put away as much as possible today as we travel tomorrow. We even got our problem slide in. Then we watched Naked and Afraid,  Castaways up in the bedroom. I told Jim do you realize this TV probably hasn't been on for 2 years. Was more comfy than sitting down on the sofa.

Visiting Bucksport Maine

Visiting Bucksport Maine 

Thursday August 24, 2023

This morning after breakfast I made a no-bake pineapple cream cheese pie. From a lovely YouTube video. 

Then today we left after lunch in the RV. We went to the little town of Bucksport that you can see across the bay when we were up in the bridge.

They had a farmers market every Thursday so we went there first. Very small they're looking for more vendors.

The weather was so weird this season they said, not a lot of produce available. They had a few things that I thought were overpriced.

 My main objective was to find wild blueberries.

 Cutest little town, they had a walking path over half a mile long.

 Got another good view of the bridge and Fort Knox. 

Some of the animals that are in the area

Jim sat on a bench while I finished the walk out to the end. 

Found this lovely poem in dedication.

Then we went up and walked along the cute shops. Went into one really cute shop very antique. 

I told Jim I found something I wanted. He said oh really. I said it will even fit in the RV, but there's no price on it. I opened my hand, and had a tiny little ceramic cactus. That was one of a set of salt and pepper shakers, with no stopper in the bottom. So I took it up to the lady and told her I found something that would fit in our RV,  as we travel. I told her there was no price on it. "She said where did you find that. What am I going to do with that, " so she gave it to me. So surprised. I wanted to put it in my little succulent plant. That was so incredibly nice of her. We chatted for a minute, then continue our walk.

James Emery house one of 9 beautiful homes on the national historic registry.

We walked along store fronts and found the ice cream shop in the area. It was busy, we had a small cone and Jim gotta Kit Kat blizzard flurry.

 We enjoyed that as we watched the traffic. Then headed back to the truck. And continued our search for produce / Wild blueberries.

Finally found another stand along the road, we had to turn around in a Family Dollar Store. We pulled in and they had nice bundles of firewood for $6 each, Jim got two. They had some nice produce. I got the zucchini and yellow squash.

The little things sitting next to the blueberry pie was the tiny cactus salt shaker that the shop owner gave me. You can zoom in if you really want to see it closer. Lol

 Jim paid and then walked away as I continued to think of what else I wanted. So I decided on just a couple tomatoes, and a pepper and the guy said it was near the end of the day and he just gave it to me. Also a bag of radishes. All this for $5.00. People who live in Maine are so generous. Really makes you want to pass it on. 

Almost as soon as we arrived. 

These people pulled out that were just shopping. The guy said they were married for 70 years. And right there in front of us they pulled out in front of a work van that was going by, and they pulled out too soon and clipped the van in the back. The guy said was that the old couple and just pulled out. Yes, The one guy went up and made sure everybody was okay. That was such a shocker.

Then we made a stop at the Chicken Barn, It was recommended. The place was ginormous, hence Chicken Barn they're huge. 

As we went inside realized they were closing in 10 minutes. Very overwhelming in there I did a quick lap that didn't hardly cover anything. Snapped a few pictures. But the workers were not very friendly saying, " if you're going to make a transaction please bring it to the front now."  So we left, Jim said we could come back another day,  Im good,, but as I told the lady earlier it's all kind of stuff that's awesome but we can't purchase because of our chosen living arrangement as full-time RVER's.  Unless you're buying it for a gift,  it's a no bueno.

So we left there and continued our search for berries. We knew there was one just past the campground. We finally found the guy, as he was about to close too. It was after 5:00 p.m. by now. He was very welcoming and invited us in. I bought a big box of Frozen Wild blueberries. As the season's over so they're frozen now, and a small blueberry pie for Jim.

    ( picture above)

 He showed us how he has a sign posted with prices, and it's self-service there just help yourself from the freezer. How incredible. He says he does have a camera, but he really doesn't have trouble. That's so lovely about Maine. 

Then we headed home. Jim started a fire pretty quickly put everything away. I made dinner and we ate out by the fire.

 And enjoyed our dessert there that I made this morning also.

Later Cindy and Billy called so nice chatting with her, covering alot of topics. Hopefully we can go to the Tampa RV show campout, she is organizing. We will miss them by about a week in Hershey in September, darn.

Friday August 25, 2023

This morning I had gotten up first, woke up probably 4:00 a.m. when it started to rain and put the awnings the rest of the way in. It continued to rain the whole rest of the day. We had plans for this rainy day on some things we wanted to do. At one point I went out and squeezing the camper got it pretty clean looking, the back side wasn't wet at all, didn't do much there. 

I made some banana, peanut butter, oatmeal cookies. With over ripe bananas, guess I should stop buying them.. Was a cool day, nice having the oven on.

Then I started vacuuming and cleaning the RV, It's been a while. Did a couple loads of laundry. Took lunch break in the middle there somewhere. At one point later in the day decided it was just pouring so much we decided not to go anywhere today.

I made soup with the wild turkey David gave us. Creamy turkey corn,  potato chowder.

Travis called us on his way home from work, he was looking for Mia didn't know where to pick her up. He wanted us to call her for him. His phone was finally totally broken now. 

Once that was all taken care of.

We finished dinner and relaxed in the evening,  rain continued and we watched TV before bed.

Jim did the dishes too. So nice.

Acadia National Park

Acadia National Park 

Wednesday August 23, 2023

This morning we got another late start as usual. But it was before 11:30 a.m.

 We left to go to Acadia National Park. Arrived to parking lot, was much smaller than we thought. It took about 40 minutes to get here . They had one long row where you could parallel park a big rig or RV. Of course there was a lot of cars in there. No room for the truck. We looped around quite a few times until we found a spot in the RV section/big rig. 

Went up quite a few flights of stairs went to the gift shop. Went into the info center,  got our National Park passport stamped, received a map.

Ate lunch I packed in the truck. Jim took a little bit with him for later.

 Then we came down to get on the free bus that takes you around the park. We did the loop around. It was alot of woods and hiking trails. Jim wasn't into that today. We got off the bus and had a beautiful walk along the shore path along Bar Harbor.

Some amazing yachts.

      And beautiful homes in Maine.  

Are bus, and one of the pianos I heard about that are all over the country for people to play. As soon as someone got up, someone else sat down and played. YouTube is full of cool videos of great artists who play so well.

Such a beautiful day, one minute you feel like you need a jacket and next you want to take it off.

This lady in the bottom picture with a black dog, offered to take our picture. We thanked her and she walked away I realized she had a dress with the label of Old Bay on it. She said she was about to go on a Sunset Cruise boat ride. I thought the dress was pretty cool.

Balance Rock, everyone wants to climb on it. Has a big story to it, from a different area. Got here from a melted glacier from a long long time ago. Or something like that.

Love these

We started heading back to the parking lot and arrived about 5:30 p.m. parking lot really emptied out. And the cars that were in the RV / big rig spot had tickets on them. We saw at least three or four cars with a big orange signs in the window. That was cool. Thank you Acadia National. 

We enjoyed our drive back to the RV. 

We ate dinner and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Penobscot Narrows Bridge, Fort Knox

Penobscot Narrows Bridge, Fort Knox

Tuesday August 22, 2023

This morning got up late for having plans to go see stuff. Just can't seem to get moving early. After we got ready and I made a pasta salad and packed us a lunch for the day. 

We went over to check out the store for informational brochures, to help plan our day. The lady working inside was very helpful, she gave us a lot of ideas of things to do.

 We left after 11:00 a.m. again. Guess we have to work on getting an earlier start. Jim says good luck with that. 

First we went to the Bridge. It was fascinating how it was constructed.

Penobscot Bay

 And made for such a cool View for pictures. You actually can get in an elevator and go to the top, and have amazing views of the area. 

It was 9.00 per person for non-residents.

You can see the pull off we used yesterday to wait to check in here, and we first saw the bridge.

A little freaky up there, although I'm glad the elevator was a smooth ride. Spend a lot of time up there.

You can see the truck from here.

 Talked to a few people. Some guy had a Penn State shirt on so we started chatting and possibly know some of the same people. Once we got back down on the ground we went back to the truck.

We got our lunch out of the truck I prepacked and found a lovely shaded picnic table area to enjoy what I brought.

 There even was a designated RV parking area, Jim said we would have fit in. When we were finished with lunch we should have dropped our bags at the truck, but we didn't. 

We decided to walk over and you can of do a self-guided tour of Fort Knox.

The middle picture which what looks like a pizza oven. Was made to heat up the cannonballs and fire at the passing ships, to catch them on fire. This explains how they had that plan, but never actually used the oven. And they built quite a few of them. Reminds me of buying things for an RV that you think you're going to need, then you end up never using.

 So many different plaques with details were very interesting to read. I realized previously you can't read them in a collage.

 So I put one or two up here with the most interesting facts I found.

Cool seeing the bridge inside the Fort.

 We spent a lot of time walking here, probably put quite a few miles in today.

You could walk around inside, 

some of which was creepy.

Once we got all the way around we found a beautiful Shady spot with a fantastic View. We took turns enjoying the gift shop and hit the bathrooms before we headed out. 

It was hard to find our way out of Fort Knox. 

Once we got back to the truck we decided to head back home, about 4:30. 

First we stopped at a wood carver we had passed. He was actually carving and gave us a wave.

 Here's a few of his items for sale. Of course we both think Drew's are way better. I always think other people's bears look like cartoon caricatures. But Drew's look like a real bear.

After we left we stopped at Hannaford's grocery store again. I'm really liking this place. Jim actually came in with me and we walked most of the aisles. We usually skip diapers, and dog food, dish detergent, and toiletries. So that does cut out about half the store. Found a few things I wanted and headed out back to the RV again.

 I'm still looking for a place that has wild blueberries for sale. Got  back to the RV relaxed and had dinner. Jim grilled chicken on the Ninja. Trying to figure out what we will do tomorrow.